Comment by deep-root

A "back of the napkin" calculation seems to indicate there is no mass exodus. On mobile, but here is the typical annual CA pop change stats for the past decade, give or take:

  --Incoming--
  - 400K domestic immigrants[1]
  - 180-200K international immigrants[2]
  - 450K births[4]
  Subtotal: ~1.1M

  --Outgoing--
  - 600K domestic emigrants[1]
  - 250K deaths[4]
  - ?? intl emigrants (anyone know?)
  Subtotal: ~850K

  Typical annual net change: +250K (California grew 2.4M from 2010-2020[3])

California shrank in 2020 for the first time in decades seemingly because:

  - 50-80K excess deaths
  - 180-200K less intl immigration
  - 50K fewer births

That's already a loss of 300K people as a one-time event, and the state is down 450K from a typical year. It's easy to come up with another 150K, it's a trivial not "mass exodus" number.

But possibly a lot of those who left were missed in statistics.

[1] https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/265 [2] https://www.ppic.org/publication/immigrants-in-california/ [3] https://www.ppic.org/publication/californias-population/ [4] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/state-and-territorial-data....

Edit: learning to format...